Release B

During the summer of 2000 in Microsoft's interactive television group, things were abuzz with anticipation. Our main customers were impatiently waiting for the production version of our software for high end set top boxes. Some months before I arrived, the head of the organization had promised everyone a trip to Hawaii if they released the product on time. They didn't, and now the engineers and business development people were anxious to put the finishing touches on the product and proudly roll it out the door. Release B was a step in the right direction.

At first I was aghast at all the different versioning schemes the group had invented as the delays rolled way past the customers expectations. It seemed so patently transparent, who did they think they were fooling? They tried several flavors of Alpha and Beta to whet their customers appetites, but none were really ready for prime time. Then they tried Beta 1, Beta 2, Beta 3 to indicate they were getting very, very close to production-worthy code. When I arrived on the scene, they had just transitioned over to yet another new nomenclature - the alphabet - and had just released Release A and started working on Release B. I worked with the leadership to instill more engineering discipline into our processes, and create actual meaningful definitions for milestones. Up until now, there really wasn't great concurrence between the various technical disciplines (development, test, and program management) about crisp definitions on things like entrance requirements and exit criteria for milestones. The creative geniuses who held great sway over the organization felt that software code would just dribble out whenever it was ready to dribble out, and I felt that was a hell of a way to run a ship. So for Release B, I was determined to make milestones meaningful.

And so it was. Eventually, we were able to broker agreements between the disparate groups, and everyone worked long hours until finally, in November 2000, we happily signed off on Release B. We held release parties, and patted ourselves on the back- visible progress! We felt we finally were closing in on the last mile. We felt if we followed the same disciplined approach, the next release would be production-worthy. Finally, after so long, a product our customers could put into production use was just one more release away..... if only we could continue to agree with each other, stop internecine bickering, and all row the boat in the same direction...... we could see light at the end of the tunnel, and we hoped it wasn't an onrushing train.